White House is right to push back

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Cindy Sheehan is stopped by a policeman at a checkpoint leading to the ranch of George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas in 2007.
Reuters

Even former President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco called out “sensation-seeking columnists and commentators,” and the crowd burst into jeers and catcalls at the reporters there. The sentiment was immortalized by Richard Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew, who memorably charged that many in the press corps were mere “nattering nabobs of negativism” — and for good measure — “an effete corps of impudent snobs.”

And Republicans have certainly taken on specific media, as well.

Newt Gingrich, in one of his radio addresses as speaker, said it was time to zero out the funding for public broadcasting, which he saw as carrying a liberal agenda. Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Bush all at one point blamed the “liberal, elite media” as at the root of their problems, with famous battles against Connie Chung, Dan Rather and others. At the time, the Republicans called CNN the Clinton News Network.

If a Democratic administration ostracized Fox News, it was mild compared with the Republican attempt headed by New York Rep. Peter King to institute a criminal investigation by the attorney general into The New York Times for its coverage of the Iraq war — a charge he made on “The O’Reilly Factor,” of course.

And Ed Gillespie, working for the Bush White House, essentially made the same charge against MSNBC that David Axelrod and Anita Dunn made about Fox News. Gillespie said in essence that the reporters and hosts of MSNBC have a point of view that comes through in what they do.

Even the John McCain presidential campaign tried to get NBC off of presidential debate panels and would not allow columnists such as Maureen Dowd and Joe Klein on its planes. McCain strategist Steve Schmidt also called MSNBC “a partisan advocacy organization that exists for the purpose of attacking John McCain.” Newsweek found its access threatened after one of its cover stories.

So regarding the idea that the White House is going over the top — well, the crocodile tears from the Republicans on this issue are just too much. I always say there is a campaign that is about the real issues and a campaign about the campaign — the discussion of the polls, who is positive and who has been negative. This debate during the last week has fallen into the latter — it has not been about health care, the stimulus or the deficit. The debate has been about whether the White House has lashed out at its critics and the Republican talkers have appeared earnest in making their case, counting on a rather short public memory for their actions.

But in this case, you have to separate the spin from the reality. The Republicans dithered on meeting and including Democratic-leaning groups and made it a big part of their agenda to attack the “liberal” media. Giving everyone a seat at the table doesn’t mean giving everyone a seat to sit there and attack the White House. And if anyone should and can appreciate that point, it is those very Republicans on television now complaining about it.

Mark Penn, the CEO of Burson-Marsteller and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, has been a pollster and an adviser to President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Mark Penn, the CEO of Burson-Marsteller and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, has been a pollster and an adviser to President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."

Wow, I was rather stunned to read such an opionated, biased piece (even by Politico's standards) until I read the above mini-bio of the article's author. Really, Politico, if you're going to highlight certain stories you should put a disclaimer at the beginning of the column that this somebody's OPINION, not a news story.

Their vicious ad hominem attacks have hurt Obama, but have hurt them even more. They have nothing constructive to say, just slime the President and say no to everything.

When the Dems criticized Bush, the Republicans screamed "Traitors" "Treason". Well many of us think that the Republicans hate Americas democratic elections. In fact, they have formed an alliance with al-Queda.

Why do Republicans hate America except when they are in power? What a bunch of whining losers.

The difference is that the Republicans never asked the rest of the media to boycott MSNBC or the New York Times--though it would have been fun if they had just to watch the outrage. What makes this worse than anything Nixon did is the fact that the White House believed a substantial portion of the media would do as they said. And based upon Slate, Joe Klein and several others, their faith was not misplaced. For White House to be so public about this indicates they believed the rest of the press would go along. And based upon the adulatory coverage of Obama, they were right to think that way.

The difference is that the Republicans never asked the rest of the media to boycott MSNBC or the New York Times--though it would have been fun if they had just to watch the outrage. What makes this worse than anything Nixon did is the fact that the White House believed a substantial portion of the media would do as they said. And based upon Slate, Joe Klein and several others, their faith was not misplaced. For White House to be so public about this indicates they believed the rest of the press would go along. Considering the adulatory coverage of Obama for nine months, they were right to think that way.

The difference is that the Republicans never asked the rest of the media to boycott MSNBC or the New York Times--though it would have been fun if they had just to watch the outrage. What makes this worse than anything Nixon did is the fact that the White House believed a substantial portion of the media would do as they said. And based upon Slate, Joe Klein and several others, their faith was not misplaced. For White House to be so public about this indicates they believed the rest of the press would go along. Considering the adulatory coverage of Obama for nine months, they were right to think that way.

Bush is no longer president. He has no control over what BHO does. Everything BHO does is by his own choosing. BHO is messing up because he does not know what he is doing. It is not Bush's fault that BHO is taking this country down the tubes to places it has never been before. This has nothing to do with Bush but i guess BHO has to blame somebody or admit he is a failure. I see he took the route of blaming Bush for his failures.

wingnuts constantly rant about the left bringing up the former administration. they fail to realize each time they criticize obama, they themselves are drawing attnention to the former administration. case in point; cheney's latest "dithering" rant. perhaps had he and bush dithered a bit longer prior to invading iraq they would have come up with a strategy of what to do after the fall of saddam rather than allow the country to lapse into chaos and looting. their whining about health care reform, at least obama and the dems are going to pay for it unlike bush and his GOP congress that charged medicare part D to the nation's AMEX. medicare part D is currently adding some $700+ billion to annual deficits because pubbies refused to pay for it, yet they now whine about a $1.4 trillion dollar deficit the majority of it again inherited. tell ya what, you quit whining about obama's attempts to clean up the GOP's mess and i'll stop reminding you how the previous administration created it. DEAL?

The republican'ts and their mouth-piece Fox Views should be called on every time they spew some lies and hatred. Do not let up on those morons. ************************************************************************************************************************************************

Its funny how the accusation of lies and hatred are thrown around so easily but the instances of these socalled lies and hatred are never stated. For the Obama White House to complain about the news coverage from one news channel when all of the other news coverage gets a thrill running up it's leg whenever Obama speeks publicly is the biggest joke of all. The people in the Obama Administration really are a bunch of crybabies.

High-larious. Rupert Murdoch's crapfest known as Fox News pretends to be a broadcast journalism source. The Obama gang calls the cable tv subsidiary of the Rethuglican Natl. Comm. almost exactly what it is, & a few wingnutz get their underwear in a wedgie. Har-har. And Rush Limbaugh may someday win the Edward R. Murrow award . . . drivel-icious!

The comparisons to MSNBC are stooooopid. That cable tv source refers to itself as "politics," in the sense of "all politics, all the time." That seems vastly different than pretending to be a news operation. Also, in most respects, the Clinton News Network retains a little of the ancient Ted Turner intentions, but will sometimes revert to a sort of "curmudgeon" version of semi-independent reporting.

Similarly, ABC, CBS, & NBC continue to be what they've always been: corporate media outlets, each with a very well known business agenda that promotes generalized national themes.

And PBS--as Jim Lehrer (US Marine captain, Korean War) sets the theme-- runs pretty much true to form as what might be termed a "quasi-conservative" or "para-independent" source of unoriginal sourcing.

Fox is a joke. It just seems that someone in the Obama admin. needs to develop a better punchline for that phony comedy.

wingnuts constantly rant about the left bringing up the former administration. they fail to realize each time they criticize obama, they themselves are drawing attnention to the former administration. case in point; cheney's latest "dithering" rant. perhaps had he and bush dithered a bit longer prior to invading iraq they would have come up with a strategy of what to do after the fall of saddam rather than allow the country to lapse into chaos and looting. their whining about health care reform, at least obama and the dems are going to pay for it unlike bush and his GOP congress that charged medicare part D to the nation's AMEX. medicare part D is currently adding some $700+ billion to annual deficits because pubbies refused to pay for it, yet they now whine about a $1.4 trillion dollar deficit the majority of it again inherited. tell ya what, you quit whining about obama's attempts to clean up the GOP's mess and i'll stop reminding you how the previous administration created it. DEAL?

The republican'ts and their mouth-piece Fox Views should be called on every time they spew some lies and hatred. Do not let up on those morons.

I get so sick of this ridiculous arguement I want to puke. Disagreeing with the Obama administration does not consititure lies and hatred. What hatred specifically are you referencing? I think Obama's plan for this country is wrong. I think he is a tool being used by behind the scene manipulations. I think his oratory skills outweigh everything else he does a hundred fold. Are this the kind of hatred you are talking about Gerome?

Comparing Sheehan and what conservatives have done in the past, with the notable exception of Nixon, with what this administration id doing is plain ludicrous. Whenever liberals are challenged in what they believe they resort to straw man attacks, with no substance to back them up. Clinton did it with the "Vast right wing conspiracy" and now Obama is doing it but on a much worse scale. You are no longer fooling America, most press and any other media is controlled by your ideology, if you cannot get your message out and have it accepted, then the message must be a bad one for the country. Quit whining and bring a policy that America wants and it will accept you.